Case control

IN EVALUATING

A type of study design that is used to identify factors that may contribute to a medical condition by comparing a group of patients who already have the condition with those who do not, and looking back to see if the two groups differ in terms of characteristics or behaviors.

Related:
Comparison group,
Control group,
Randomized Control Study

Commentary

A case control study is an observational study in where subjects (“cases”) who have a particular condition, often a disease, are compared with others (“controls”) who do not but are otherwise similar. In other words, subjects are not randomly allocated to intervention and control groups. This type of study is relatively inexpensive and well-suited to the study of medical conditions.

Catalytic First Lost Capital

IN FINANCE

Catalytic first-loss capital refers to socially- and environmentally-driven credit enhancement provided by an investor or grant-maker who agrees to bear first losses in an investment in order to catalyze the participation of co-investors that otherwise would not have entered the deal. Catalytic first-loss capital has gained recent prominence in impact investing dialogue as more investors look to enter the market.

Confusion and tension can arise not so much from the definition of “causality” but from disagreements on what are appropriate methods and criteria for establishing cause and effect relationships. We infer causality from what we see. Evaluation has tools and approaches to help people make valid inferences, though differences in perspectives and bias can lead to different people inferring different things from the same observations and information.

Charity

IN GENERAL

An organization set up to provide help and raise money for those in need.

Common usage in the UK to denote organizations with a social purpose and a certain tax status. In the US, “charity” more commonly denotes making financial or volunteer donations to an organization, rather than to nonprofit organizations themselves.

Clean technology

IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

See definition for “Green tech”.

Related:
Sustainability

Commentary

Long form for “cleantech.”

Cleantech

IN FINANCE

See “Green tech.”

Commentary

Short form for “clean technology.” Also written “clean tech” or “clean-tech.”

Client centered

IN BUSINESS

See “client centric.”

Related:
Client centric impact evaluation

Client centric

IN BUSINESS

A specific approach to doing business that focuses on the customer. Client centric businesses ensure that the customer is at the center of a business’s philosophy, operations or ideas. These businesses believe that their clients are the only reason that they exist and use every means at their disposal to keep the client happy and satisfied.

Outside of monopolies, all businesses need to be client-centric to some degree to survive. Taking a client centric approach refers to the degree a business focusses on clients and customers in how it operates. The term is used in the charity sector to emphasize a focus on the beneficiaries of services rather than the funders of the organization.

The legal use of “collateral” as an adjective refers to something being a secondary, or immaterial, issue, whereas the financial use refers to something (e.g., a collateral loan) being backed up by an asset.

Collateral (Noun)

IN FINANCE

Something pledged as security for repayment of a loan, to be forfeited in the event of a default.

IN BUSINESS

Printed or electronic information used to help encourage people to buy a product, for example information sheets, websites, etc.

The term was coined by John Kania and Mark Kramer in Collective Impact, a 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article. The article describes a form of cross-sector collaboration that comprises five components: a common agenda, shared measurement system, mutually reinforcing activities, constant communication, and a backbone support organization.

Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI)

IN FINANCE

A private sector financial institution that focuses on personal lending and business development efforts in local communities. CDFIs can receive federal funding through the U.S. Department of the Treasury by completing an application.

Community Interest Company (CIC)

IN SOCIAL ENTERPRISING

A type of company, designed in particular for social enterprises that want to use their profits and assets for the public good. CICs are easy to set up, with all the flexibility and certainty of the company form, but with some special features to ensure they are working for the benefit of the community.

Any CIC assets and profits (aside from those distributed in accordance with the rules on dividend capping) must be kept within the CIC and used solely for community benefit. This is known as an asset lock. The only bodies to which assets can be transferred are other asset-locked bodies, i.e. those organizations which already have an asset lock, such as charities or other CICs.

Comparator group

IN EVALUATIING

See definition for “Comparison group.”

Related:
Control group

Comparison group

IN EVALUATIING

A non-randomly selected group that does not receive the services, products or activities of the program being evaluated.

Related:
Control group

Confidence interval

IN EVALUATING

A range of values so defined that there is a specified probability that the value of a parameter lies within it.

In recent years, several players in the sutainable development, social enterprise, and impact investing fields have begun to use “client,” “customer,” “user,” “end-user,” “constituent,” and “stakeholder” in place of “beneficiary” as part of a movement to recognize the individuals who benefit directly from an intervention, product, service, or investment as active participants, rather than passive recipients. Though each of these terms vary slightly in meaning, they are often used interchangeably.

Content validity

IN EVALUATING

The degree to which a measure or set of measures adequately represents all facets of the phenomena it is meant to describe.

Context

IN EVALUATING

The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.

IN EVALUATING

The ambient social circumstances that do or may influence what is being evaluated or the evaluation itself; by contrast with ambient physical circumstances that would normally go under “description.” Context includes attitudes and expectations by stakeholders (these factors also apply to consumers), access to documents and sites, and community status. Context has longitudinal (historical, diachronic) and a cross-sectional (concurrent, synchronic) aspect. Context is often crucial for establishing causation.

Understanding context, or contextual analysis, is important in evaluation, philanthropy, and social enterprise, and to a lesser degree in economics, in determining whether a particular intervention in a particular point in time and place is likely to be or was successful. Realist evaluation methods in particular emphasize the role of context. Contexts include social, economic and political structures, organizational context, program participants, program staffing, and geographical and historical context, among other features.

Contingent valuation

IN ECONOMICS

The method of valuation used in cost—benefit analysis and environmental accounting. It is conditional (contingent) on the construction of hypothetical markets, reflected in expressions of the willingness to pay for potential environmental benefits or for the avoidance of their loss.

Control group

A randomly selected group that does not receive the services, products or activities of the program being evaluated.

Related:
Attribution,
Comparator group,
Comparison group

Commentary

The difference between a control group and a comparator group is that the former is randomly selected. The latter is not.

Control(s)

IN ACCOUNTING

Any action taken by management, the board and other parties to manage risk and increase the likelihood that established objectives and goals will be achieved. Management plans, organizes and directs the performance of sufficient actions to provide reasonable assurance that objectives and goals will be achieved.

IN FINANCE

The power to govern the financial and operating policies of an entity so as to obtain benefits from its activities.

IN GENERIC

The power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events.

“Controls” is often associated with another word, such as “internal controls”, “accounting controls”, “management control”. Confusion can arise if “control” is used as a shortened version of “control group”.

Convention(s)

IN GENERAL

a) A way in which something is usually done. b) An agreement between states covering particular matters, especially one less formal than a treaty. c) A large meeting or conference, especially of members of a political party or a particular profession or group.

Cooperative

IN BUSINESS

Firm owned, controlled, and operated by a group of users for their own benefit. Each member contributes equity capital, and shares in the control of the firm on the basis of one-member, one-vote principle (and not in proportion to his or her equity contribution).

Corporate Governance

IN BUSINESS

The framework of rules and practices by which a board of directors ensures accountability, fairness, and transparency in a company’s relationship with its all stakeholders (financiers, customers, management, employees, government, and the community).

The corporate governance framework consists of (1) explicit and implicit contracts between the company and the stakeholders for distribution of responsibilities, rights, and rewards, (2) procedures for reconciling the sometimes conflicting interests of stakeholders in accordance with their duties, privileges, and roles, and (3) procedures for proper supervision, control, and information-flows to serve as a system of checks-and-balances.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

IN BUSINESS

“CSR,” is a corporation’s initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company’s effects on environmental and social wellbeing. The term generally applies to efforts that go beyond what may be required by regulators or environmental protection groups.

CSR may also be referred to as “corporate citizenship” and can involve incurring short-term costs that do not provide an immediate financial benefit to the company, but instead promote positive social and environmental change.

Correlation

IN EVALUATING

a) A mutual relationship or connection between two or more things. b) A quantity measuring the extent of the interdependence of variable quantities.

IN FINANCE

To talk of a correlation is to express the strength of the relationship between two variables. A correlation is said to be positive if movements between the two variables are in the same direction and negative if it moves in the opposite direction. A correlation of zero means there is no correlation at all between the two variables.

Sometimes correlation is used in its statistical sense regarding the quantifiable strength (between -1 to 1) of a relationship between two variables. Other times it is used in a general sense to suggest there is or is not a relationship between two variables, without specifying its strength.

Cost allocation

IN ACCOUNTING

Assignment of indirect costs to a cost object (a job or task) without arbitrary apportionment. Costs can be allocated where the amount to be assigned can be determined accurately.

The Economist definition notes that cost-benefit analysis “sounds simple and common-sensical, but, in practice, it can easily become complicated and is much abused. With careful selection of the assumptions used in cost-benefit analysis it can be made to support, or oppose, almost anything. This is particularly so when the decision being contemplated involves some cost or benefit for which there is no market price or which, because of an externality, is not fully reflected in the market price. Typical examples would be a project to build a hydroelectric dam in an area of outstanding natural beauty or a law to require factories to limit emissions of gases that may cause ill-health.”

The “counterfactual” is an important concept in evaluation. It is an estimate of what might have happened without the intervention. This is different from the general use of “counterfactual” as a conditional statement. Both might be confused with the adjective.

Customer(s)

IN BUSINESS

A party that receives or consumes products (goods or services) and has the ability to choose between different products and suppliers.

In recent years, several players in the sustainable development, social enterprise, and impact investing fields have begun to use “client,” “customer,” “user,” “end-user,” “constituent,” and “stakeholder” in place of “beneficiary” as part of a movement to recognize the individuals who benefit directly from an intervention, product, service, or investment as active participants, rather than passive recipients. Though each of these terms vary slightly in meaning, they are often used interchangeably.

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